The Tennessee Titans aren’t losing games because they’re leading the league in penalties. It’s more accurate to say the Titans are losing games and they’re leading the league in penalties.
After an intense focus in the offseason on penalty reduction and eliminating self-inflicted errors, the team already has committed an NFL-leading 28 penalties through two weeks, counting flags that were declined. The Titans also rank last in the NFL in penalty yard differential (minus-119) and are second-worst in the NFL with 193 penalty yards assessed.
It’s reasonable to draw a connection between the woeful 0-2 start and the nagging penalty issues. The Titans stunk last year, and they ranked among the NFL’s most-penalized teams. They stink again, and the penalty issues haven’t been cleared up.
But that’s not exactly what’s going on here.
The Titans, NFL penalties and what the numbers say
The Tennessean examined data from the past three seasons looking for any semblance of correlation between penalty rates and team success.
The numbers say there’s virtually zero correlation between a team’s win total and any of the following eight categories:
total number of penaltiestotal number of accepted penaltiespenalty yardage assessednet penalty countnet penalties assessednumber of pre-snap penaltiestotal offensive yards nullified by penaltiesdefensive first downs surrendered via penalty.
Put another way: exactly half of the teams that made the playoffs the past three seasons ranked in the top half of the NFL in penalty count, and the others in the bottom half.
This research matches with Titans coach Brian Callahan’s feelings on the matter.
“Ultimately, are penalties predictive of wins and losses, are they predictive for playoff teams? It’s a little bit looser in the penalty thing that is per se like the turnovers,” he said. “Turnovers are incredibly predictive. Good teams who don’t turn the ball over, they make the playoffs. If you don’t take care of it, you don’t win games. That’s tried and true NFL formula for every team in the league. The penalty part is a little bit more variant. There’s not as many concrete things (where you can say) less penalties equals more wins.”
So what was the point of the offseason pontificating about reducing penalties? Callahan’s conclusion from studying the Titans’ penalty habits landed on what he calls “controllable” penalties. He’s not overly concerned with rewiring the way his players think about offensive holding or defensive pass interference calls. Those happen amid the physicality of the game, and can by Callahan’s description sometimes end up subjective, depending on referees.
Instead, when Callahan’s focused on reducing penalties, he has emphasized pre-snap, post-snap and alignment penalties. Think false starts, illegal formations, late hits, etc.
And . . . yeah, the growth isn’t happening there, either. In 2024, the Titans averaged 3.6 controllable penalties per game. Through two games in 2025, they are averaging six controllable penalties per game.
This is the heart of the penalty issue. No, the Titans aren’t losing because of penalties. And no, there’s no league-wide correlation between penalties and team success. But it can be said that the uptick in penalty rate is symbolic of the Titans’ team-wide inability to translate messaging into action. Whether high penalty rates contribute to losing culture is immaterial. What matters is the Titans say they need to cut down on penalties — and they can’t.
“There is a brand of football that you try to play where you’re not beating yourself,” Callahan said. “That’s happened for us a few times as we’re trying not to put ourselves in position to lose games. We’re trying to win them and you have to start there by taking care of the things that don’t get you beat. And I think ultimately that’s where the emphasis started and what we landed on is that that’s how you improve your football team is taking care of the things you can control because there’s a lot of things you can’t, but the things we can, we’ve got to do a better job of controlling.”
Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at  nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X @nicksuss. Subscribe to the Talkin’ Titans newsletter for updates sent directly to your inbox.